Conversations with Clinicians

When Patricia Marra asked me to interview David Rosenfeld for fort da, all I could think was, “He will never sit still long enough for me to get this done.” I was right. This interview with David Rosenfeld took place via email over a span of more than a year and five countries. He is a man on the move! I have, as he requested, “Englishized” some of his answers while at the same time trying to keep the pleasure of some of his unusual turns of phrase. It was a delight to be able to ask him the following questions and to study his answers. I only regret that this interview had to be truncated because of his intense teaching schedule.

A word about how I met Dr. David Rosenfeld: David would come to Berkeley several times a year to visit his dear friend, Bryce Boyer, a beloved teacher of mine. David would come to the Boyer House case conference to teach us, would supervise each of the psychotherapists multiple times, and we would manage to slip in a few riotous dinners along the way. After Bryce's death, David continued to help us at the Boyer House, temporarily occupying the large vacancy left by Bryce and encouraging us to continue our analytic work with severely disturbed patients.

David Rosenfeld is the author of numerous articles and is the recipient of the Hayman prize in 2008 for his paper on traumatized children. He has written three books: Psychoanalysis and Groups (Karnac, 1990), The Psychotic Aspects of the Personality (Karnac, 1992), and The Soul, the Mind and the Psychoanalyst (Karnac, 2006). A courageous, creative, and dedicated clinician, Rosenfeld is also one of the leading psychoanalytic theoreticians of South America and has for many years pioneered in the psychoanalytic study of psychosis and addictions

David is a supportive, loving, and loyal friend; an impossibly difficult teacher; and, last but not least, a passionate Shakespeare scholar. My favorite image of him is the photo shown below, taken when he was awarded the Sigourney Prize in 1996. The proud